Tuesday, March 19, 2019

I finished off the last of the Imperial Assault commission I took on (except there may be a few replacement figures left to arrive).

These guys were from a Hoth set. I'm now going to shift to rebasing some 1812 figures and painting up some of the railway buildings I picked up this past weekend. With spring upon us, I'm also going to start shifting to one post per week (from two) for the summer.

Saturday, March 16, 2019

I haven't had a lot of chance to game these past few weeks with competing demands and a nasty cold. Jess and I did get in a game of Memoir 44. It was an Operation Cobra scenario and she pulled out a win in a tight game.

This morning was the bi-annual model railway swap meet. I picked up a few terrain items for cheap. First up was a $5 HO-scale factory. This needs a coat of spray primer and then some painting.

I also got a meat shop. Nothing special about it except my Gotham lacks buildings that suggest people live there so a food shop was a good deal. Needs dusting, a wash, and some sealing. This was $5?

I got a pair of HO-scale street cars. They need painting but offer an alternative to cars and buses for eco-conscious super villains. They were $5.

This factory was $15. It was a bit pricy but still a deal. Needs a wash and seal. maybe some detailing on the fire escape on the back side. Irritatingly, it was not constructed square (left section needed filing that was not done).

Finally, I got these bits and pieces for $12. The cars are great and a oil tank and coal pile are useful pieces.

Overall, a great haul for $42. I still have three Star Wars figures I'm finishing, some 1812 figures being rebased, and then I'm onto these buildings. There is also a club night this week.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

I ordered some additional cars with which to clog the streets of Gotham. There were from China and at least one is 3-D printed.

The most interesting aspect of these is how the lines from the 3-D printing are so much more visible in a picture than in real life.

The blue beetle (bah-dum-bum) is the best example. You can only see the printing layers if you look for them. But they jump off the screen as soon as you put a camera on them. Obviously, a wash was not the correct technique!

Up next: Maybe some gaming with Bruce and the end of the Imperial Assault figures. Then on to rebasing some 1812 1/72-figures.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

I worked up some more Imperial Assault figures this week. These have been painted for awhile but I struggled to get a decent snow base for them.

We'd originally discussed and then discarded model railway supplies as too costly. The owner then found a baking soda technique he liked.

That created a lovely finish that was too brittle for gaming (crust broke off as soon as figure was handled). My efforts to strengthen the crust using various sealers were were unsuccessful so I eventually painted over it with thick craft paint to try and get some snow effect.

The figures themselves were nice. The trooper in the hover tank is slightly smaller than his foot-bound friends.

The wampa is nice enough but could may be a touch larger?

I've got a few more figures with different basing underway before bringing this commission to a close.

Saturday, March 2, 2019

I dropped in on Bruce for gaming on Tuesday. We played another pair of skirmish games, pitting Osprey's En Garde against Tribal.

Bruce hauled out some 28mm musketeers for the evening. Both games were "get the Queen across the board" scenarios.

En Garde (basically Rohan) was fun but deadly. There are some interesting planning mechanisms (selected number of attack and defence moves) but the rules are such that the specific moves one uses in combat are almost always the same.

In the end, the musketeers managed to get enough double teams to grind the cardinal's goons to dust.

We then played the same scenario with Tribal (but with a better grasp of the combat mechanics). The game was much more fun, with each round of combat being a mini card game.

The result was a victory for the cardinal's troops. I was so engrossed I the game that I forgot to take pictures. The different is the decisions required by the mechanics in Tribal are way more interesting than in En Garde.

The one down side is that the table get cluttered with cards. That could be reduced by using smaller cards. It is also really at two person game (four players would yield a lot of sitting and waiting while melees were resolved. Both were good games but Tribal was the winner.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Some more Imperial Assault expansion figures rolled off the production line this week.

First up were a second pair of Weejay pirates in a different paint scheme.

Then I finished off three heroes (or villains?). There was a Greedo-esque figure, Mr. Narwhale, and some lady wearing blue storm trooper armour.

These were interesting figures mostly because they required me to sort out different painting techniques to match the various photos I had. Some wet-on-wet, some washing, some drybrushing, and some block-and-dip.

I'm presently working on the last expansion (Return to Hoth) for this commission as well as rebasing some 1/72-scale War of 1812 figures to go with some new Osprey rules.

Saturday, February 23, 2019

I finished more figures from Imperial Assault (about 2/3rd through commission). This week, I did some henchmen for Jabba.

First up were some Gamorrean guards. There were suppose to be four, but one spear was broken. When the replacement figure arrives, I'll paint him to match.

These were nice figures--great detail and lively sculpts.

I also started on four Weejay pirates. I finished two this week.

Again, really nice figures. I spent some time trying to hand-shade some of the materials. Not sure it mattered in the end. But happy enough with the results. The other two have a different base and different colour scheme.

I have some more pirates and some heroes underway and then I turn my attention to some Hot figures (which require a different approach to basing).

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Some more Tatooine figures from Imperial Assault this. These are four jetpack troopers.

Nice models. What they need are flames come out of the jet pack (rather than just nozzles).

I also finished up an HO-scale fountain I bought on eBay to add a water feature to my Gotham layout.

This was 3-D printed and seemed fine to me. It has a clear insert for the water that was awful so I replaced it with some white glue (to fill space) with some green washes and then a thick top coat of future floor wax (for shine and depth).

Some 25mm figure for scale. I also have some printed HO-scale cars that I'm working on along side more Star Wars figures.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

I dropped in on Bruce Tuesday night for some samurai gaming. hH had made some new foam-core and paper terrain to go along with the minis he painted.

First up, we tried Ronin from Osprey. This is a skirmish game with 5-12 minis per side. The objective was to control the bridge. Set up offered some opportunity for fun, with the attacker influencing defending figure positions (can't recall exact details).

Basic game is initiative, move/shoot, melee, and morale/administrivia. The combat mechanics offer some interesting ideas (shifting initiative, some pre-planning of attacks and defense through action selection, the opportunity to trade number of attacks for more effective attacks).

Combat is fixed combat factors (different calculation for attacker and defender) plus die rolls with difference equating to damage. The mods on the QRS were initially fiddly but, after a few rounds, they were memorized so that issue dropped away.

Our game saw the defenders picked apart and things coming down to a fight between two samurai on the bridge. It was pretty dramatic!

Then we switched systems to Tribal where two teams compete to gain the most honour points. You get honour for combat, kills, and victory point captures. This creates a meta-game that drives tabletop strategy.

Typical turn sequence is initiative then alternating moves with combat resolved as contact happens. The interesting mechanic is that it is all done with playing cards. Each unit is assigned a card at the beginning from a randomly drawn hand. If the unit combats that turn, the assigned card is the first card played in combat (so you need to think about where contact is going to be that turn).

Assuming the unit survives the first card comparison, then players can play cards from randomly drawn combat hands (black is attack and red and defence) with card value determining winner (no dice in combat).

This sounds clunky but creates an interesting microgame of hard decisions in combat that was quite engaging (especially as units got ground down and there were fewer cards to choose from).

Overall, I enjoyed Tribal more than Ronin, but both were fun and fine games. I think we tied in Tribal when we tallied honour points at the end (again, recollection is shaky--it was fun though).

Saturday, February 9, 2019

We had five guys out at the club this week, braving a nasty cold spell (-30C) to play two games (store and streets were deserted).

Terry brought out the Guilds of Cadwallon, a worker placement game. I was leery at first (many worker placement board games require too much mental effort for me) but enjoyed myself so much that I forgot to take pictures! I would definitely play again.

Mechanics are basically place workers to capture tiles which have intrinsic point value plus may contribute to your secret mission (more points). We played two rounds--probably needs to be three rounds. To everyone's surprise (including mine), I won. Yay, dumb luck.

Chen then hosted a game of Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles. The game looks a lot like X-Wing but I thought the basic mechanics were more akin to Wings of War. We played the base rules (cinematic flight) but the game allows for Newtonian flight (i.e., facing does not equal direction of travel). Above are most of the components you need to play.

We played two raiders versus two vipers (ignore the hex grid--not used for game). Vipers turn better; raiders are tougher. Hey, where's my wing man, Taylor!?!?!?

Oh, there he is. Hurry up, dude!

Mechanics are simultaneous plotting by selecting maneuver cards and speed, then movement, then combat. Combat by dice roll (minor mods for range), damage by chit draw.

The maneuver cards are a touch clunky (i.e., too many cards in hand to select among, not enough room on board to place them in the tight dog fights caused by short shooting ranges). But no mechanic is perfect and they do allow for a booster option and G-limits in the basic game and seem to have extra info for the advance flight game.

Our game saw the vipers out maneuver the raiders. But the raiders managed to kill a viper and then it became a nasty knife fight (raiders can fly backwards?!!?) followed by the last viper cutting and running (successfully).

Secret damage chit draws was interesting. I took two hits early on and was suddenly 11/14 damage. Chen took eight (EIGHT!) chits and was 14/16 damage ("DIE ALREADY!"). I don't think Terry took any hits (the Force is strong in this one). I'd try this again to see if the Newtonian flight mechanics are workable.